Lesson 28

Handout 1 - Fact Sheet

The Haymarket

The area to the west and south of the Public Square and the the
east of the Cuyahoga River, was traditionally known as the Haymarket.
It began as a marketplace, where eventually a residential, business,
and commercial district developed, and which, as the oldest housing
stock in the city deteriorated, became Cleveland's first slum.

The area was developed after 1839 at the intersection of Michigan
and Ontario Streets. The open-air market at which farmers sold
produce and hay from the backs of wagons, met on Tuesday, Thursday,
and Saturday. Farmers began gathering before sun-up on the 4 acre
site. By 1856, the city fathers passed legislation in city council,
creating an official city market and allocating funds for the
construction of a permanent market building at Pittsburgh (Broadway)
and Bolivar Streets.

Cheap housing made the area appealing to the transient workers
of the docks and later to immigrants. By 1900, 40 different nationalities
could be found in the area and social workers had to be familiar
with a total of 14 different languages in order to be able to
communicate with the population. Most of the immigrants were drawn
into a cycle of poverty. The deteriorating housing was turned
into multi-family tenements, and transients, derelicts, and criminals
rubbed shoulders with newly arrived immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Factories in the nearby Flats polluted the air and the skies were
constantly gray.

Commercial buildings and small businesses mingled on the main
streets with residential, social, and religious institutions.
Saloons were by far the most plentiful commercial enterprise.
Thirty saloons were located on Commercial Street alone. It was
not an uncommon sight to see men and women drinking beer while
walking on the street or seated at the curbside drinking from
pails or buckets. Beer was cheap. For a nickel, you could get
a two quart pail at almost any saloon in the neighborhood. Because
of the ready availability of alcohol and its open use, the Women
Christian Temperance Union made the Haymarket area a target of
their reform movement, opening temperance reading rooms in the
area. The Young Women's Christian Association opened the Friendly
Inn at Central Place in 1874. Founded as a wholesome gathering
place free from the evils of liquor, this social agency, at first
provided a reading room where temperance tracts were available,
and a meeting hall for men and boys. Later a restaurant, kindergarten,
playground, children's library, and commercial laundry were added
to the complex, but the emphasis remained on providing cheap clean
lodging for drunks, and chapel services and nightly temperance
meetings for the men of the neighborhood and their families. Social
workers at the Inn taught women and children basic housekeeping
and child care and provided bathing facilities for men and vocational
training for boys. By 1907, the Inn added a children's dispensary
to its complex. Each immigrant group had their own department
within the Inn structure headed by a person who spoke their language.
Classes in American speech, customs, and law were provided to
new arrivals to ready them for citizenship.

Store front canteens were opened by a number of religious groups
and the Salvation Army opened a barracks for transient men and
poor families, displaced from their home for one reason or another.
A free dispensary for children was established, as well as a milk
dispensary where mothers who had no refrigeration in their homes
could obtain fresh milk for their children.

Besides the Friendly Inn, the other important social service agency
in the Haymarket was Hiram House. Established in 1896 as an outgrowth
of a class project among a group of Hiram

College students, it was first located in a temporary structure
on the west side of Orange Avenue. Eventually a permanent structure
was erected at 2713 Orange Avenue. In 1900 the largest percentage
of the population was Eastern European Jews. By 1914, most of
these immigrants had abandoned the Haymarket area and were replacedby
Italians, who made up 93 % of the population. In the post-World
War I era, African-Americans from the South replaced the Italians
and other white European ethnics in large numbers. The Italians
helped to popularize the sale of fresh fruits and vegetables in
the area, selling items such as oranges, bananas, olive oil, and
garlic from stands in the Central Market, and pushcarts and wagons
along the city streets.

George Bellamy, head of Hiram House from 1897 to 1946, was able
to obtain substantial monetary backing from the prominent families
of the city. He used the funds to build additional structures
on land adjacent to the main building, including a public shower
complex, as well as to purchase a rural camp in Moreland Hills,
where children from the area would be taken during the hot summer
months. Eventually Hiram House expanded its program into the city
schools, creating satellite social service agencies. As the population
of the area dwindled in the 1940s due to urban renewal and city
demolition for freeway construction, Hiram House finally ceased
operation in the area as a social service agency, although the
rural camp still operates today.

The Haymarket was a rough and ready place. Crime was rampant and
people ventured out on the streets at night only in a dire emergency.
Police patrolled in twos and threes and a newly installed call
box system allowed them to call for help if needed. Patrol wagons
were available nearby at the Central Station to haul away drunken
and disorderly citizens. By 1894 the city had established a mounted
unit, and the policeman and his horse became a common site on
the streets of the Haymarket. By 1890 the city's population had
exceeded 350,000, a good portion of which was located in the crowded
Haymarket area. 355 policemen in 12 different precincts across
the city administered the law and keep the peace, but the roughest
area was still acknowledged to be the Haymarket.

Today much of this area is covered by Gateway, the Tower City
Complex, and the Innerbelt. The population of immigrants has been
dispersed to other areas of Cleveland and to the suburbs, but
the history of the Haymarket still remains.